Fox scores with Hispanic TV, online ad sales for Super Bowl

(Reuters) - Twenty First Century Fox, whose Fox network is getting an average of $4 million for a 30-second spot on its sold-out Super Bowl telecast, has almost reached that mark on its Spanish-language channel and online video stream.

Fox should have sold nearly 90 percent of available advertising time on Fox Deportes by the time the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks take the field on February 2, said Tom Maney, executive vice president of advertising sales at Fox Hispanic Media.

Sponsors signed up so far include AT&T, Anheuser-Busch and Pfizer.

In November, the National Football League and Fox Deportes announced that the cable channel would be the first U.S. Spanish language TV outlet to carry the title game, typically one of the most-viewed sporting events in the world.

Advertisers on Fox Deportes’ Super Bowl telecast buy packages that also give them time on its video stream.

Before game time, Fox should also have sold out ad-space on its live stream at Fox Sports Go, said Marla Newman, Fox Sports Digital’s senior vice president of advertising sales.

More than 100 million viewers are expected to watch the title game on the Fox TV broadcast, said Brad Adgate, Horizon Media’s senior vice president of research.

Far fewer viewers will watch on Fox Deportes, which is available in only 21 million homes. Just 44,000 viewers watched the channel’s first NFL game, the Thanksgiving Day match-up between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, according to Nielsen data.

“We expect to quadruple, do five times that amount,” said Maney. He would not disclose how much advertisers were paying for time on the network.

Fox expects the video streaming of its game on Fox TV to surpass the 3 million unique users who streamed last year’s Super Bowl game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens on CBS’s CBSSports.com, said Newman.

CBS’ stream had 43 percent more viewers than NBC’s live stream the year before, which chalked up 2.1 million unique users, according to Adgate.